


News and Olds

by ashurbadaktu



Series: Chameleons and Circuits [6]
Category: Doctor Who, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-23
Updated: 2011-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-23 00:20:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/244195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashurbadaktu/pseuds/ashurbadaktu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik still doesn't exactly know how to pilot the TARDIS but that might be for the best for everyone.  Jack, on the other hand, knows exactly what Erik needs</p>
            </blockquote>





	News and Olds

They didn’t end up in Paris.

 _Why didn’t you correct me?_

 _...because you seemed to be doing just fine?_

 _You mean the part where I was completely wrong or the part where I was _completely _wrong?___

 _You had the date right until you changed the century instead of the year._

 _Something you could have told me before I pulled the lever!_

 _There’s no reason to shout._

 _...really?_

 _We’ll get to Paris. This, on the other hand, can’t really wait._

Erik growled before turning away from the console and heading for the doors. There was something niggling, his friend wanting to say something but obviously unsure of how angry Erik was, but he ignored it partially because he wasn’t really that angry and partially because it was nice to make his friend squirm a little for once.

The screen hadn’t done the place justice and a chill went down Erik’s spine before he stepped out, glancing around to see if there were any beings who looked like they were patrolling the area. He didn’t see any, which almost made things worse, so he made his way over to the cells.

There were any number of them, dirty and bone-thin, covered in scars and wounds and bruises. They piled together for warmth and comfort even though it wasn’t that cold, but Erik supposed that the pitted metal floor would have offered anything better. A few dim eyes opened and stared at him, but it was a young boy with limp tangled hair and a determined expression who finally spoke.

“You’d better leave. If they find you, you’ll only get tossed in with us. And you won’t like what they do to us.”

Erik’s teeth ground against each other and it didn’t take any prompting at all for his hand to rise from his side. The metal of the cell bars twisted and a _yank_ back tore the door from it’s place.

No one moved.

“Well?” he asked, his breathing heavy. This place felt like everything he’d ever run from, everything he’d hated, everything he wanted to _end_. The faint hint of blood in the air, the metallic scent anything but comforting... Mostly, though, it was the people. The ones staring at him from within the broken confines of their cell.

“Escape! Go free!”

“Where?” asked the boy with something very much like a hollow laugh. His eyes were haunted and there were lines on the arms crossed over his chest that made Erik’s stomach twist.

“What do you mean, where? To any of the others; I’ll break them out too.”

“And then what?”

And then what?

If there was a question Erik couldn’t answer, it was that one. He’d had his answer practically trip him in the middle of the woods and force it’s way into his life. He didn’t regret it, not for one moment, but that wouldn’t help him now.

“This is a space ship!” the boy pointed out, his anger at the situation pointed squarely at Erik. Some part of his brain wondered absently if the Doctor had to deal with this sort of thing, if this is what he’d looked like in those Cybermen-infested woods. The rest of him decided he didn’t care. “There’s nowhere for us to go but back in the cells and we’re not about to waste the energy. We don’t know how to get back to our home, and even if we did, they might come back and do it again!”

 _Erik, you know--_

 _No, I don’t. I don’t know what to say._

 _...I’m roughly the size of a planet in here, Erik. And there are extra rooms._

 _We can’t keep them forever, my friend. They’re not_ puppies _._

 _No, they’re not. But we do happen to know someone who might have the resources to find them a new home._

 _You don’t mean..._

 _Cardiff isn’t ideal, but he might have a better idea. The most important thing is that they can’t stay here._

Erik disagreed but it was the most important thing to deal with for the moment.

He turned back to the boy, who’d started to eye him warily.

“Are there any other cells?” he asked quickly, glancing around. He couldn’t see anything but--

“There are some down that way,” the boy was good enough to point down the left, “and there are those still being used there.” To the right.

Erik’s blood went cold.

“Being used?”

The boy’s eyes were clear and blank and so very tired as he lifted his arms.

“You didn’t think we did these things to ourselves, did you?”

\--

“You scared the crap out of Ianto, you know,” came a familiar voice from the hidden portal.

Erik rolled his eyes and leaned against the desk that the ‘secretary’ had been occupying until just recently.

“I wasn’t intending to step out of the wall either. My friend likes to be funny sometimes.”

Jack smiled as he took in the other man. Erik lost his patience at the length of time that was taking and nudged his shoulder.

“What? I know it’s look, don’t touch.”

They were going to roll out of his head at this rate.

“I need your help.” A hand went up to silence Jack so he could finish. “Namely, I need to relocate some refugees. They believe their home is destroyed, I have no reason to disbelieve them, and the prison ship they were on when I found them is now a compacted hunk of metal floating in space.”

Jack’s eyes widened a little and both eyebrows shot up.

“Whoah.”

“...I wasn’t a fan of what their captors were doing and it seemed like a good idea to make sure they couldn’t do it anymore.”

Jack whistled low. “Yeah, I can see how _you_ didn’t get along with the Doctor.”

Which was just the icing on the cake as far as Erik was concerned.

“ _Anyway_ , I thought, given your resources, that you might have someplace to put them. They seem relatively human, though... from the future, quite a ways.”

Jack chuckled smugly.

“Oh, we’ll find something for them. How far into the future?”

“51st Century,” he said with a slight wince. Jack would have asked, except that he was too busy being shocked.

“51st? That’s... wow,” his hand ran through his hair, “that’s my home turf, so to speak. Any idea on the planet? Wow, that’s just...”

Erik wasn’t in the mood to talk about where anyone was from, least of all himself, and deferred to the wall. A tap and a door within it opened. He stuck his head in.

“Gray, come here! You get to be negotiator.”

 _Er, not to alarm you, but Jack has turned sheet white and looks as if you’ve smacked him with a fish._

 _...how many people have you seen smacked with a fish, exactly?_

 _More than you’d think._

But as Erik pulled back and the boy from the cell trotted out the door, he had to admit the assessment was accurate. And even more blood seemed to drain from him as Jack took in Erik’s little annoyance.

“Something wrong with him?” the boy asked.

Erik shrugged.

Which was when Jack dove at the kid and things got Very Messy very fast.

\--

“So what you’re saying is that the boy I found is in fact Jack’s brother from the 51st Century.”

Ianto nodded and placed a cup of coffee beside Erik.

“And Jack hasn’t seen him since they were children when the boy was taken?”

“Precisely.” Which came with an economic sip of an identical cup of coffee.

“And all of the people who just marched out of my TARDIS?”

“--are the majority of the village people from the little town on the Boeshane Peninsula where he grew up.”

Erik eyed the other man across their respective beverages.

“How much of that did you know before he started shouting it out in between naming every single one of them and hugging them?”

“Absolutely none of it.”

“Good to know.”

\--

Erik reached back to pull the door shut when an arm snapped out, grabbing him. As he’d had several cups of coffee (and an extremely illuminating discussion concerning Jack, the Doctor, and the kind of information that would probably get a normal person thrown in prison for the rest of their life without a trial), he almost tossed the owner of the arm through the air by his buttons but managed to reign himself in at the last moment.

“Hey,” Jack said with the brightest smile he’d ever seen on the other man. The shadows were, if not gone, then absent from his eyes for the moment.

“Yes?”

“You have... no idea what you did for me today, Erik. No idea what you’ve given me back. My brother... those people...” Jack’s eyes were bright with tears as well, the warm glow of the TARDIS tracing the shine of the liquid.

It made Erik’s throat go tight. No, Jack was very wrong about that. He knew exactly what he’d done. He’d done what he’d said he would do, and what he could never do for himself. The metal beneath his feet vibrated a little even as a mental touch, his friend, attempted to sooth him. It wasn’t so much the soothing as the touch that let him speak.

“I did what needed doing. That’s all.”

“You did what I didn’t think could be done,” Jack said firmly, “and I can... I honestly can never thank you enough.”

Erik’s shoulders clenched up. This was not a discussion he wanted to have. He’d hoped that Jack would be busy with the refugees long enough that he could get away, but Ianto had proved both amusing and clever and his coffee was better than what Erik seemed to make for himself in the TARDIS kitchen. He’d asked how, but of all the things Ianto would share, his coffee preparation methods were not among them.

“I don’t need your thanks. But I’m... glad.”

Jack eyed him even through the tears, and he had a feeling that the man from the future had figured out something or other about him. He didn’t like the idea, but there was nothing he could do about it. Hopefully Jack would forget, but he knew the man was sharper than that.

Also, handing him something.

“What’s this?”

“Plug it into the console,” Jack said firmly, letting go of Erik’s arm. “It’s... a little something we cooked up, courtesy of some really unique alien technology. We made it before today, but now I just _have_ to give it to you. I have a feeling you’ll really appreciate it.”

Erik looked sideways at Jack.

“Which part of that was supposed to make me feel confident enough to use it?”

“Just... trust me.”

Erik looked even more skeptical and Jack gave a sigh.

“You’re going to have to trust someone one of these days, Erik. I didn’t steer you wrong with the groceries, now, did I?”

Erik put his hand on the door. The groceries were a far cry from the safety of his friend.

“I’ll think about it.”

Jack sighed, but the smile stayed on. It probably wouldn’t be moving anywhere for quite some time, even if he thought the other time traveler was being, well... himself.

“Well, you think about it and you take care of yourself, okay? I’m hoping you’ll come by and actually visit for a while sometime, let me say thank you the best way I know how.”

Erik’s cheeks turned a little red at the smile _that_ came with before he made sure Jack saw him roll his eyes. Then he closed the door.

 _Any idea what it might be?_

 _None._

 _Are you going to trust him?_

He stared at the device in his hand before walking forward, looking at the console for a spot that matched the section that seemed to be a plug. He found it not on the main console, but underneath it near the base of the structure.

 _It’s up to you, my friend. I don’t even know what it does._

 _I doubt it would harm me. There’s very little that can, especially when I’ve got my guard up. And I don’t think Jack would try and harm us, especially after today._

 _It’s still up to you._

 _It’s up to both of us. This is your home as well._

 _I should go back there and demand he tell me what it is._

 _You know how well that will work._

Yes, Erik did. So it came down to trust. How much did he trust Jack?

 _I don’t think he’d harm you, Erik, if that means anything. And I’ve gleaned that he’s smart enough to know that harming me would harm you._

Erik quirked his head at one of the curls of organic matter.

 _Why are you so anxious for me to do this?_

 _Because I have a feeling you should. And because I think I might recognize it. But I’d rather not get your hopes up._

Erik had to fight very hard to keep himself from crushing the device. Now even his friend was keeping secrets!

 _Not a secret. Just... playing my cards close, as they say. I want you to find out more than anything, honestly._

Which had him swallowing. His friend wanted something. Normally his friend didn’t want anything except to travel, to bring Erik places and show him beautiful things. Or to bring him to horrible places and help him to make them better. If he was honest, and he tried to be even when it hurt, Erik knew his friend had asked very little of him over the years for all that he had provided.

Erik stared at the device for a moment more before pressing the connector in.

Almost immediately, a small section flew off from the main body, approximately the size of a bee. It hovered in the air as the rest of the device seemed to cycle through a setup program of sorts, lights blinking and shifting. Eventually, however, the most interesting to look at was the floating object as a shadow began to coalesce around it.

A dark patch became small, smooth fingers sticking out of a crisp white shirt. The shirt was underneath a vest, over a pair of somewhat rumpled slacks, and below a smooth jawline and a flop of wavy brown hair. Eyes as blue as a dwarf star stared out at him from a face that he’d kept in the darkest recesses of his mind, something he’d constructed as a boy to make sense of something as vast and mad and brilliant as what he had been given.

“Ah, yes. Hard/soft holograms. Lovely stuff. I’m amazed that Jack managed to get his hands on a set, honestly. They’re terribly rare, after all, and far beyond--”

The figure blinked at him, the way he’d always imagined his friend might blink in those awkward little pauses between the words in his mind. But the words weren’t in his mind any longer. There was a voice, soft, with the same lilting accent and a smile just as audible as it had always seemed.

Except now there was a real smile to go with it, on red bow lips with crinkled happy eyes.

Erik swallowed.

“Do you like it, Erik? I constructed it from your mental image of me, though I realize that I’m bits and pieces of people you’ve known and that might be a bit distressing now that I’m, er, in the fl--”

Erik had his finger over those lips because this could _not_ be real. The lips were solid, soft and a little damp since his friend had the tendency to bite them in awkward times but this. This could not--

 _I most certainly am real!_

And he startled back, not expecting to hear the voice in his mind considering... considering...

“I’m still me, Erik. This is merely a projection using some very advanced hologram technology.”

“You’re... you’re the TARDIS? You’re really the TARDIS?”

That smile. He could _feel_ it, but seeing it was so much nicer.

“Yes, Erik. It’s me. Your friend. Here... and” he held his arms out to encompass the room and all that went beyond it, “out here too. One and the same. But your friend as always.”

Erik stepped closer, trying to take in the details now. He’d never had the details; each piece of his friend that he’d made up had been on the spot. When he heard that smile in his words, or when he needed comfort... they were in his mind, but they had been enough to live on, the image of a playful grin or the illusion of a hand stroking his hair back. But now he had this, all his pieces put together into a strange, beautiful little young man with eyes like the stars and clothing like his grandfather’s.

“...you don’t like it?”

Erik couldn’t answer, not with those eyes focused on him and his heart thudding hot and quick in his chest. This was his friend. This was his _friend_. This was the one who’d picked him up from the forest and taken him to see the stars, the one who’d shared everything with him in the only life that seemed entirely real anymore.

“I could unplug it if you like. We don’t--”

But that finger was on his lips again, joined now by Erik’s forehead pressed against the pale skin that felt as real as anything could. His hand, the one not futilely attempting to quiet his companion, slipped into the soft chestnut hair and his fingers slid between the cool strands. Through, through, all the way through until the pads pressed just beneath the jaw and the dull throb of a heartbeat, simulated though it might be, made his muscles relax.

He leaned farther, feeling the weight of the other against himself, the _solidness_ , and his arms ran down to pull his friend into a tight hug.

”Oh, Erik...”

And one of those small, soft hands were in his hair now, stroking as he’d always imagined, running down over his shoulder with a light rub to the ever-present bulbs of tension in his muscles. The other soon found itself at his jaw, thumb rounding the curve ever so gently.

“I’ll... we’ll need to figure out a name for you,” he finally got out after what seemed like an eternity.

Nothing changed, though. The hands were still running through his hair, holding his cheek. Everything else was too overwhelming to deal with, but that was perfect.

“Of course.”

“And this is-- that-- this changes things.”

“Somewhat, yes. But for the good, I think.”

Erik could only nod.

“But--”

“All in good time, Erik. And I can say with some authority that we have all the time in the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...because SOMEONE with a bloody TARDIS had to fix that. *cough*


End file.
